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+--- Thread: What is the situation today re: passive voice with inanimate subject? (/thread-12167.html)
What is the situation today re: passive voice with inanimate subject? - john555 - 2014-09-09
I'm currently working on Lesson 25 of my textbook, which deals with the passive voice.
The lesson states that "a fundamental condition of the use of these forms [i.e., (a)reru] is that, at least theoretically...they can have only animate subjects, that is, their subjects must be living...
But later:
"...[T]there is a growing tendency to use [the passive] with impersonal subjects, perhaps under the influence of English:
Kore wa itiban hutuu ni tukawarete iru hikooki desu.
This is the aeroplane which is the most used.
"You will be well advised to avoid this use, however, until you have considerable experience of talking in Japanese, when you will know with what verbs it is possible. It seems, for example, that there are no restrictions on the use of tukawareru."
So is the above statement still valid, or does it need to be modified/updated? My textbook is kind of old. Thanks.
What is the situation today re: passive voice with inanimate subject? - yudantaiteki - 2014-09-09
My impression is that on the whole, that observation is still valid.
Passive voice used with inanimate subjects is more common in written or formal language, but it is used sometimes in spoken language as well.
What is the situation today re: passive voice with inanimate subject? - Stansfield123 - 2014-09-09
john555 Wrote:itiban hutuu???
What is the situation today re: passive voice with inanimate subject? - yudantaiteki - 2014-09-09
Stansfield123 Wrote:What's wrong with that?john555 Wrote:itiban hutuu???
What is the situation today re: passive voice with inanimate subject? - sholum - 2014-09-09
yudantaiteki Wrote:It's one of the most aggravating versions of romaji, that's what; never understood why textbooks love it (and other such abominations) so much.Stansfield123 Wrote:What's wrong with that?john555 Wrote:itiban hutuu???
As for the topic itself... well, I can't add anything; I agree with what was already said.
What is the situation today re: passive voice with inanimate subject? - erlog - 2014-09-09
People have argued with him about that stuff before, and he's adamant that textbooks from the 60's are the greatest and romaji is useful past the first few weeks of Japanese study.
At this point, I'm convinced he's either a time traveler or has some kind of system like in the movie Frequency where he's using this forum through some kind of communications wormhole from the 1960's.
What is the situation today re: passive voice with inanimate subject? - yogert909 - 2014-09-09
I believe he is using Teach Yourself Japanese - first printing 1958 - the year Khrushchev became Premier of the Soviet Union and Breakfast at Tiffany's was published.
What is the situation today re: passive voice with inanimate subject? - Vempele - 2014-09-10
john555 Wrote:For those who don't like romaji, please note that I DID try to put my example into kanji and kana but as I was at a terminal at the public library this was not possible. (I tried everything, even looking for a website that would convert romaji to kanji and kana but all could find were sites that converted into 100% kana so I gave up).I used http://inputking.com/ to type the following:
これは一番普通に使われている飛行機です。
One gotcha is that you have to type nn to get ん even if you were just going to convert it to kanji anyway, unlike with regular IMEs. (I actually map x to ん so I never have to type nn or nnn).
What is the situation today re: passive voice with inanimate subject? - john555 - 2014-09-10
Vempele Wrote:Thanks! I tried it and I like it. It seems to work even better than when I type at home in Word using the microsoft japanese language pack.john555 Wrote:For those who don't like romaji, please note that I DID try to put my example into kanji and kana but as I was at a terminal at the public library this was not possible. (I tried everything, even looking for a website that would convert romaji to kanji and kana but all could find were sites that converted into 100% kana so I gave up).I used http://inputking.com/ to type the following:
これは一番普通に使われている飛行機です。
One gotcha is that you have to type nn to get ん even if you were just going to convert it to kanji anyway, unlike with regular IMEs. (I actually map x to ん so I never have to type nn or nnn).
What is the situation today re: passive voice with inanimate subject? - RandomQuotes - 2014-09-10
john555 Wrote:The textbook I'm using is Teach Yourself Japanese by Dunn and Yanada.Which is as yogert909 said, the first generation of the teach yourself books devised in the 1950's, though maybe not the first printing.
The only reason I would possibly consider the older ones is that Dr. Alexander Arguelles recommends them, and some people at HTLAL forum are keen on them, but he also studies roughly 8 hours everyday.
What is the situation today re: passive voice with inanimate subject? - john555 - 2014-09-10
RandomQuotes Wrote:It was published in 1958. My copy states "1968 printing". I think they corrected a few obvious typos.john555 Wrote:The textbook I'm using is Teach Yourself Japanese by Dunn and Yanada.Which is as yogert909 said, the first generation of the teach yourself books devised in the 1950's, though maybe not the first printing.
The only reason I would possibly consider the older ones is that Dr. Alexander Arguelles recommends them, and some people at HTLAL forum are keen on them, but he also studies roughly 8 hours everyday.
I like this book because of the grammatical explanations and the numerous exercises. Even when I took Japanese in a night class with a real Japanese teacher (whom some of the students addressed as "Sensei") I kept my copy in my briefcase so I could refer to it. A review of the book says that the chapter on the numberical system (and the table at the back of the book) are very useful. I like the pull-out table of verbs in the back too.
I also like the fact that there are dialogues in the back of the book, each one covering 5 lessons (cumulatively) so they serve as a review of the grammar and vocabulary. I read the dialogues out loud and also write them by hand in kanji and kana.
I find the authors' style amusing. E.g., they say on p. 126: "You will not have forgotten that "kuru" is strictly reserved for motion to the place where the speaker is." Implying maybe that if you have in fact forgotten you need a caning from the headmaster.
What is the situation today re: passive voice with inanimate subject? - john555 - 2014-09-10
Guys, what about my original question (way at the top of this thread)? I'll try to avoid romaji since its use is apparently so controversial.
Specifically, the book said that it is possible to use the passive of 使う with inanimate subjects, as in:
使われている飛行機 (as opposed to: 使ってある飛行機) "the plane which is used".
The book said this is not technically correct and may be due to the influence of English; and that in any case it's not possible with all verbs.
Can someone give some examples of other verbs like 使う which can be used in the passive with an inanimate subject?
What is the situation today re: passive voice with inanimate subject? - viharati - 2014-09-10
使ってある飛行機 means the plane we already tried.
使われている飛行機 is fine and not less natural than 人々がよく使う飛行機.
これは一番普通に使われている飛行機です is perfectly natural because there aren't any other factors that have higher Sympathy (有情性) in the sentence.
建てられた・作られた for famous buildings or arts are commonly seen.
What is the situation today re: passive voice with inanimate subject? - erlog - 2014-09-10
I have never seen much of a distinction between animate/inanimate when it comes to passive form noun phrases. I really think this note in your book is outdated prescriptivist nonsense.
You're asking about grammar advice from a 60 year old book. Language changes fast, and words like "correct" are of limited use when it comes to language learning. There are lots of grammar mistakes that Japanese people themselves make every day(お茶になります). Nobody cares, though. That's the language as it exists.
I would have a hard time trusting any kind of advice from that book. It seems really hard to know what "correct" would even mean in that context.
Inny Jan Wrote:I think it's just tedious for them to read, and I agree with that. Most of us here probably never really used romaji for very long, and so we just can't read it as smoothly as we can kanji/kana.dtcamero Wrote:I suppose we don't need to beat this dead romaji horse any more but wow, man. wow.[...]漢字で書くのかローマ字で書くのかどちらかいいで、口論をする人はどんな目的があるの？
I kind of wish the mods would make a rule either way so that it didn't derail every thread john555 posts. Either we say nobody can criticize romaji or that you shouldn't be posting in romaji. Either would cut down on the number of low content posts about it.
Or maybe there's a third way where we can get Fabrice to develop [romaji] [/romaji] tags that convert it to hiragana.
What is the situation today re: passive voice with inanimate subject? - gaiaslastlaugh - 2014-09-11
Moving the Roumaji discussion to a new thread, as it's off topic:
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?pid=212379#pid212379